


A Past So Deep

by NellieOleson



Category: Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-06
Updated: 2012-04-06
Packaged: 2017-11-03 04:07:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/377003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NellieOleson/pseuds/NellieOleson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of them had changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Past So Deep

The week started out a lot better than it ended, although had anyone asked her, Alex would have insisted Monday would have been its low point. Monday was cold and sluggish beyond the reach of a reasonable amount of coffee. She considered drinking an unreasonable amount of coffee, but wasn't willing to risk being up all night staring at the ceiling.  
  
Late Monday afternoon she was at her desk measuring the passage of time in the decisive ticks of the wall clock, the random ding of the elevator, the click-clack of shoes on hard linoleum. Familiar sounds, all of them, coming together in a haphazard rhythm. She added her own occasionally, a tapping foot, a tapping pen, the deeper gong of her knee on the side of the steel desk. _  
  
Tap, tap, gong.  
Tap, gong, tap._   
  
She might have been a drummer in another life. A life of music and lights, the occasional groupie. A life devoid of paperwork and drudgery.   
  
The case file in front of her grew larger the longer she stared at it. The plain brown edges of the folder threatened to reach up and grab her, suffocating her with notes and statements and lab reports. She'd been digging through it for hours making sure they hadn't fucked anything up that might come back to bite them in the ass. By four o'clock her eyes were dry and she was getting hungry for something that didn't come in a polystyrene box with its unpleasant atmosphere of condensed food sweat. Pizza and doughnuts, and she should have eaten something more than half of Bobby's Twix Bar for lunch.  
  
She picked at the shiny gold wrapper that was still sitting on her desk, adding its crinkly whispers to the fabric of background noises. It didn't offer up any more chocolate so she dropped it in her wastebasket where it mingled with the crumpled brown bag from the bagel shop around the corner. They made a nice couple, one plain and subdued, the other gaudy and raucous.   
  
She looked at Bobby--all rustling paper and squeaking wheels--sitting at at his desk like pre-trial paperwork was just the most fascinating thing ever invented.   
  
The last time she'd seen her nephew he ran toward her with his pinky finger extended, bright-eyed and breathless having just made another amazing discovery. _"This is what the inside of my ear smells like," he said_.   
  
Like Bobby, he had a tendency to be captivated by the strangest things.  
  
"I have to get out of here before I kill someone," she announced, suddenly and perhaps too loudly. Alex looked around the room. Bobby was shit out of luck if she decided to take someone out. There weren't many people here, and he was the easiest target.   
  
Bobby looked across the span of their desks, unsurprised by her sudden need to commit murder. He looked alert, running on Twix and the thrill of the hunt for for things that might have gone unnoticed. He stared at her for a moment, collecting his thoughts, putting his treasure hunt on hold so he could come up with an appropriate response. She found the effort endearing.   
  
"Oh. Okay," he said. "Well, why don't you go home." His hands sifted through his notes and his eyes kept creeping back to a stack of crime scene photos like he'd caught wind of something that needed further review. A lead that hadn't been followed up on, a blade of grass bent at the wrong angle, a dead fly on a dirty sock, it could be anything. "I'll just- I'll catch up with you later," he said.  
  
Bobby could spend hours, days, picking through evidence. At one time, she would have left him without a second thought, only remembering the next morning when he was unchanged, unshaven that he'd spent the entire night staring at a two-minute loop of surveillance video. She's learned over the years that no matter how much he insisted otherwise, leaving him alone to work wasn't in his best interest. Bobby needed somebody to pay attention to him, to save him from his obsessive nature, and one day Alex had come to the simple conclusion that she was that somebody.    
  
She leaned across her desk, low enough that he could see down her shirt if he were looking. "Are you sure?" she asked. Bobby raised his eyebrows, because he _was_ looking, and began stuffing his papers back into his binder. Alex smiled and stood up; she hadn't expected him to give in so quickly.   
  
One of them had changed.   
  
"I guess this can wait until tomorrow," he said.  
  
*******  
  
Alex walked into her house chased by a burst of icy air and the faint, impatient bleat of a car horn. Bobby's shoes and jacket were lurking quietly in her foyer. She was still getting used to these little intrusions that came from sharing her space with another human being. Everything about him took up so much room. Room in her house, in her bed, in her thoughts.   
  
She was kicking the door shut when Bobby reached over her head and plucked the bag she was carrying out of her hands. "What's this?" he said, already busy digging through it, his face hidden behind the rumpled head of red leaf lettuce sticking out the top.   
  
"It's food," she said, and then added, "I didn't want to have to eat the neighbor's cat."  
  
"Oh." He pulled out a loaf of bread and inspected it, balancing the bag in one large hand. He turned the bread over, squeezed it, held it up to his nose and almost dropped everything else before sticking it back inside, satisfied with his preliminary inspection. "Are you going to cook something?"  
  
"Of course not," she said. Alex didn't get the kind of pleasure Bobby seemed to get from spending time in the kitchen--Bobby was like a large, socially inept version of Martha Stewart. He spent a lot of time chopping things just right, so uniform and perfect Alex suspected he measured them when she wasn't looking. He seasoned meat with spices other than salt and pepper and he'd been appalled that she'd been limiting herself to a single bottle of all-purpose canola oil for so long. She now had olive oil for dipping crusty breads (and she was beginning to see why Bobby had put on the extra pounds), peanut oil for stir-fry, walnut oil for salads, and grapeseed _(grapeseed!)_ oil for--well, she wasn't sure _what_ it was for. It was amazing really, the number of things they could squeeze oil out of.   
  
  
"I brought you ingredients," she said, slipping out of her shoes and dropping four inches. "Surprise me."    
  
The house held a dry chill and didn't feel much warmer than the front porch. Bobby seemed comfortable enough without a jacket or shoes and he hadn't bothered turning up the heat. His own apartment stayed on the cold side no matter how much his paint-smothered radiators knocked and pinged. "This place is like a treehouse," she commented one particularly drafty evening on his couch. He brought her a blanket and spent the next two hours looking for the key to bleed the air out of the system. It didn't make much of a difference but she lied and told him it had. She still wasn't sure if he believed her.   
  
She walked past the thermostat without adjusting it. What they needed was a fire.   
  
Bobby followed her into the kitchen, shuffling his socks across the tiles, and plopped the bag on the counter--pushing it closer to the refrigerator when it threatened to tip over. Then he turned, picked her up and set her next to it, leaving her feet dangling over the edge like a child on an adult-sized bench. Alex felt her cheeks get warm, but not from embarrassment. "You know I don't like when you do that," she said.   
  
Bobby was unrepentant. He stepped between her knees and tucked her hair behind her ear. "I know," he said. He stood there, still the taller one, and stared down at her with a half-stupid grin on his face. She smiled right along with him, fascinated with this new, happy version of Bobby that had surfaced since they'd crossed the thin, worn line between friends and lovers. Sometimes she wondered if he would have gotten here on his own, given enough time.   
  
He leaned over to kiss her and she let him. He was warm against her chest. Bobby's internal furnace seemed to be stuck on high. When he lowered his hands and pulled her closer to the edge, Alex stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. Bobby had a bit of a fetish for kitchen counters and it had upstaged their dinner plans more than once. Her stomach rumbled, reminding them both that there was an entire bag of food waiting patiently beside her. She shook off the memories that raced to fill her head. If only she'd eaten a more substantial lunch, she mused.  
  
"You cook," she told Bobby. "I'm going to make fire."   
  
"Okay," he agreed. "You Tarzan, me Jane. I get it." He moved aside so she could hop down and stayed leaning against the counter while she went off to burn things. He was still there when she walked by on her way to the recycling bin to grab some newspaper, looking at the counter top with his head tilted and his eyes soft. Bobby was quite fond of that counter.  
  
Two sheets of the Sunday paper were enough to get the fire started. Alex sat on the floor, watching as her baby flames grew and struggled to take hold. When she was sure the fire wasn't going to go out as soon as she turned her back, she added some larger pieces of wood. Her fireplace was cavernous, capable of producing enough heat to warm most of the house, not like those useless inserts in newer homes that only had the capacity for a single decorative sawdust log.   
  
"I'm going to take a shower," she called out to Bobby.   
  
Bobby yelled back, "Okay."   
  
It felt strange and unwieldy needing to keep someone apprised of her every move.   
  
The heat from the fire was soaking into the living room when Alex came out of the bathroom with her damp hair clinging uncomfortably to the back of her neck. Bobby was still in the kitchen, reading a book, pausing occasionally to adjust a burner and stir the contents of his various pots. Alex wasn't sure what he was making, but it smelled rich and spicy.   
  
She pulled some pillows and an obnoxiously colored beanbag she kept around for her nephew close to fire and squished a comfortable shape out of them.  Her day had been tiring in the way tedious days tended be, and she dozed in and out while watching the fire. Her hair had dried by the time Bobby poked his head out to let her know dinner was ready. He was still wearing her apron and she had to smile at how utterly ridiculous it looked on him.  
  
******  
  
After dinner, they sat on the floor in front of the couch having a conversation about nothing against the crackling backdrop of burning wood. Bobby was resting his head on the cushion behind them with his feet landing dangerously close to the fire. Alex leaned against his crisp, blue shirt and ran her fingers down the line of buttons marching toward his belt.   
  
"You're losing weight," she said before she could think that he might not appreciate the comment.  
  
"I've been getting more exercise."  
  
"Exercise," she repeated. "Is that what they're calling it these days?"  
  
"That's not what-" He stopped himself and dropped his head heavily back onto the couch. Her sense of humor occasionally caught him off guard. Alex took more pleasure in that than she should. Bobby reached down and took her hand, threading his long fingers through hers. "I think I should stay here tonight," he said.  
  
He didn't often stay over on weeknights. Someone might notice if they both started showing up late for work and looking a little too content with themselves. At least she would be late. Bobby woke up at the slightest disturbance and rarely went back to sleep once he was up. She would find him on the couch, reading or simply sitting, always with a contemplative expression on his face. She wondered what he thought about in those early hours. "I think I shouldn't let you," she said, half teasing.  
  
Bobby sat up and put his hand on her face, lifting her chin so he could see her eyes. She wondered if that was a habit he picked up in the interrogation room or something he'd always done. His eyes were dark, concerned. "You would do that?" he asked. "Make me leave?"   
  
"I haven't yet," she said. The one time he had left, he'd done so on his own.  
  
He only nodded and pulled her into his lap, kissed his way down her neck and did his best to make sure she wouldn't change her mind. She took her time undoing the buttons on his shirt, wondering if there would come a time when she _wouldn't_ want him to stay. Bobby shifted under her when she slid his shirt back over his shoulders. She made an amused noise and ran her hand over the black t-shirt still covering his chest. "What?" he asked.  
  
"Nothing," she said, then changed her mind. "You wear too many clothes."  
  
They spent the night on the floor in front of her fireplace in an uncomfortable nest of blankets, pillows and that ugly beanbag chair. She fell asleep with Bobby at her back and the warmth of the fire at her front.   
  
Her back was stiff well into Tuesday but she had no regrets about letting him stay.   
  
********  
  
Wednesday arrived bright and cold--minus one red silk blouse and plus one irritating ex-almost-boyfriend.   
  
Alex spent most of the drive to the river thinking about how Bobby's call had probably saved the dry cleaner's life. As usual, Bobby was already there, observations and theories already formed. She wondered if he did it on purpose. Waited to call her until he was actually at the crime scene so he could impress her with his skills. They huddled there on the river bank with the Queensboro bridge looming in the background like a freshly remodeled sentinel. How many murders had it stood witness to?   
  
Bobby's ears were red and Alex remembered that he'd left his knit cap at her house. It she'd known he only had one, she would have made more of an effort to get it back to him. The cold air made her nose run, and her ankles hurt from trying to maintain her balance on the soft, sandy ground. She chastised herself for her bout of self pity. It seemed unusually selfish given the circumstances. As much as she'd disliked Boz, she felt no joy over his death.   
  
Still, it wasn't like he was going to be offended or anything.  
  
When Kevin showed up with his pretentious 'Alexandra', she wanted to punch him. Showing off Boz's crude castration was fun, but not nearly as satisfying. Nobody called her Alexandra. She was Alex among friends and family, Eames among colleagues. The last time she'd been Alexandra was on her wedding day. Even then, it had been difficult to take it seriously.  
  
Bobby recognized her discomfort immediately because that was what he did. He watched her, trying to make some sense of her instant dislike of the ADA. Alex had gone through a brief but intense period of time in the second grade when she wanted to be invisible. She thought about it constantly, inventing various magic potions that inevitably failed. It all came back to her now, the appeal of it.   
  
******  
  
The beach was littered with broken shells, long rubbery ribbons of seaweed and the occasional dead jellyfish. She'd loved the ocean as a child. The boardwalks, the salt water taffy, the hot sand on her feet, even the haunted castles over in Jersey that had been so terrifying when she was young. It all seemed so long ago.  
  
She was less fond of the beach these days. The sun was bad for her skin, the sand fleas were unpleasant and it seemed that there was always an undercurrent of stench riding on the tangy salt air like an unwanted hitchhiker. Despite its shortfalls, she was glad to be there, outside and alone with Bobby--even if they were surrounded by genitalia-snatching birds.   
  
Bobby looked at his watch (no easy feat with his gloves and parka), checking to see how long they'd been freezing their asses off waiting for CSU. The seagulls screeched overhead and they watched them with matching expressions of bemused horror. Seagulls were one thing about the beach she'd never liked. Damn birds would eat anything and they shit everywhere. Sunbathers were going to be in for a shock come summer if they'd developed a taste for human meat.   
  
"I'll never be able to look at a seagull the same," she said.  
  
Bobby just laughed and made another lumbering lap around the area to see if there was anything else lying on the sand. "You want to go for a swim?" he said when he came back and stood next to her.   
  
Alex moved so Bobby was between her and the unending wind coming off the water. Sometimes it was good to be the small one. "You first," she said, bumping him companionably with her elbow.  
  
"And you'll be right behind me?"  
  
"Absolutely. With my phone camera blazing."  
  
They laughed together and Bobby didn't mention Kevin at all.  
  
After that the case started getting a lot less funny.  
  
********  
  
Ross wanted her off the case and Bobby wanted answers. Alex didn't have the energy to deal with either of them. Her shirt, and it _was_ hers--she knew, was spread out on on the bed like an open wound and she was thinking of those damn seagulls fighting over their ill-gotten treasure.  
  
Bobby was quiet, pensive on the drive to the Lion's Gate. He was watching her reflection in the windshield while she drove. It was a habit of his he didn't think she knew about and she used to think it was cute. Alex focused on the road so she wouldn't have to talk to him in more than one and two word bursts. And hadn't she been doing that a lot lately?   
  
She steered the bulky SUV around a corner and had to brake hard when a boisterous terrier shot across the street. "Sorry," she said. Bobby nodded, looking like he thought there should be more to her apology. They waited there while two young boys lured the dog back to the safety of the sidewalk and snapped a leash on its collar.  
  
Walking into the bar brought back a flood of memories, none of them good. It was if all the pleasant moments in her life had been filtered out and tossed aside like some cosmic force had decided she wouldn't be needing them anymore. The place hadn't changed much and she felt like she was looking through a warped and dusty window into her own past.   
  
The phone call was a welcome interruption. Being in that place with Bobby was unsettling. They'd been dragged across the meticulously maintained barrier she's erected between her personal life and her professional one. Not that Bobby wasn't already straddling both sides, he was, there were just some things Alex wasn't ready to share with him. It's unreasonable, she knows, because she knew everything there was to know about Bobby. The things he'd shared voluntarily and the things that had been strewn about like dirty underwear for all the world to see.   
  
She owed him some insight into her past. It's hard though, opening that box. Even for Bobby.  
  
Later, when the case is over and Mulrooney is locked safely away, Bobby will drag her back to that bar so _he_ can sit with her for hours while she talks. About everything, about nothing. It's something they need to do.  
  
But that comes later.   
  
Now there is just the confusion.  
  
How the hell did her shirt end up in that shitty motel room?  
  
*********  
  
Alex spent the next two days trying her best to avoid Bobby. It wasn't as difficult as it should have been. Bobby was very accommodating. He had leads to follow up on, he went home to his own place after work. The first night he called her, wished her a good night. The second night she waited, but he never called. Maybe it was her turn.  
  
She'd realize later that he'd been avoiding her too.   
  
She thought about him constantly when he was off on his own, digging and probing. What was he doing? Who was he talking to? What had he discovered? Did he miss her as much as she missed him? And she did miss him. It was a notion she wasn't entirely comfortable with and she couldn't say exactly _what_ she missed about him. Just a sense of something being off, a little balloon of wrongness floating in and out of her day. It came as a surprise to her. That wasn't her role in the grand scheme of things.   
  
Bobby was the needy one, the one who couldn't cope on his own. Not her.   
  
And yet, wasn't she the one who'd pushed their relationship forward into this delicate new place? It must have been. It's not anything Bobby would have done. That was something else she thought about a lot lately. Why had she done it?   
  
He'd brushed off her attempts to keep him company the day they led Declan away, still triumphant and proud, sure he'd done the right thing. Some small part of Alex that she'll never admit to agrees with Declan. Frank had always been dead weight and they might never have gotten rid of Nicole on their own. There's some sense of fairness to the way Declan double-crossed her.  
  
Bobby turned down her offer of dinner or drinks or just some company in front of the television. He left on his own, telling her he was fine. He was fine, everything was fine and there was no reason for her to be stuck with him all night. Neither of them believed it, but Alex knew him well enough to let it go. To let him go.  
  
She was awake and still worried when he called her at one in the morning. "Can you come and get me?" he asked, sounding tired and defeated through his lightly slurred words.   
  
She brought him home to her house (it was closer, she'd reasoned). She brought him to her bed (easier to keep an eye on him, she'd said) where they had drunk (him), unfinished (both) sex. She woke up the next morning with an apologetic note on her nightstand and one of Bobby's socks hiding under her bed.   
  
Not exactly a stellar start.    
  
She spent most of that day wondering what it would have been like to have been in a relationship with Bobby back when he walked around like he owned the space he occupied. When it was less of an effort for him to be alive. She spent the rest of the time wondering what the hell she had been thinking the night (morning) before. She knew better. Bobby was obsessive, unstable and just so damn fragile. It was a lot of responsibility. Responsibility she didn't want.  
  
Ross told her about his leave, called her into his office after he noticed her staring at Bobby's empty desk and glancing at the elevator every time it opened. Ross had enough insight into their past to seem embarrassed that she didn't already know. Alex did her best to not seem relieved.   
  
Bobby sent her a single brief postcard from wherever ( _I'm fine and I'm sorry_ , was all it said) and that was the last she heard from him until he'd shown up at the ferry terminal looking as hairy and uncomfortable as she'd ever seen him.   
  
They didn't talk about the incident and if it weren't for the note, she might have assumed he'd forgotten about it. For a while, they held steady, finding their footing and regaining their balance. Then they went backwards, their dismal failure at sex not discouraging them from pursuing...something. Something with better sex.  
  
She was staring into her coffee thinking of the night she'd asked him to come over after work when Ross tapped on her desk. She resented the intrusion.  
  
"Where's Goren?" he asked.   
  
It took her too long to come up with an answer and when she did, it wasn't a very good one. "He's following up on some things."  
  
"Alone?"  
  
"Is that a problem?" It was a problem. Alex had no doubt that Ross knew that.   
  
"No," and then, "Is everything all right between you two?"  
  
It was a reasonable question, the whole squad knew when there was any tension between her and Bobby. Bobby tended to broadcast and Ross had been there for some of their worst moments. He must recognize the signs by now.  
  
"Everything's fine," she told him in a tone that she hoped would end the conversation.  
  
Ross looked like he had more to say, but they were interrupted by his cell phone. She could tell by the way his face softened and his voice dropped that it was Rodgers. Such an odd couple, but who was she to judge. Ross turned and walked to his office with his head down, talking in a low voice. It must have been an interesting conversation, he shut his door and everything. She could watch him through the glass walls if she wanted to, but she gave him as much privacy as his fish tank of an office would allow.   
  
Five minutes later, Ross came back out carrying his overcoat, walking faster than normal and that was the last she saw of him that day. The clock said it was about time for her to be leaving too, but she wanted to wait for Bobby. She missed him an awful lot for someone she was trying to avoid.   
  
She was still there brooding over a half-eaten cheeseburger and some limp, greasy fries when Bobby showed up stating the obvious and radiating concern. They finally have the conversation Bobby's been waiting for since Kevin walked back into her life. Alex started to wonder if she'd been too quick to discount Kevin as nothing more than an arrogant asshole.  
  
How _did_ her shirt get under that bed?   
  
Bobby took her answers in stride, maybe the truth wasn't all that bad. "I want you to stay at my place until this case is over," he said.   
  
They don't spend a lot of time at Bobby's place. She doesn't like his neighborhood, he can't afford hers. His apartment is noisy, too close to a busy street and he doesn't have a fireplace. She should refuse, but Bobby will do nothing but worry if she does. Or worse, he'll stay up all night watching her house. "Okay," she said. Bobby looked at her with so much relief on his face she had to look away.   
  
He brought her back to his place and made love to her slowly, like every second needed to be acknowledged, cataloged and remembered. Like the memories might be all he'd have someday. Memories he'd save, tucked away, taking them out occasionally to dust them off and relive the moment.   
  
They stayed awake for a long time afterward, spooned together like a younger, less jaded version of themselves. "I can't lose you," he whispered into the back of her head.  
  
It scares her a little because she thinks he might be right.    
  
**********  
  
"Are you hungry?"    
  
Alex was still processing the fact that Bobby wanted to interrogate Kevin without her and it took her a moment to adjust to his sudden change of subject.   
  
"No, not really."   
  
Bobby sweetened the offer. "Not even for pie and coffee?" He stood and grabbed his coat before she answered, leaving her no doubt that there was more to his offer than just sugar and caffeine. Bobby was trying to get her out of the precinct. He must have a good reason or at least an interesting one.  
  
Her curiosity won out and she stood with him. "Well, I guess there's always room for pie."  
  
The diner is one they frequent a lot. It's dated and the tables are always sticky but the food is good and the staff is friendly. They sat at a worn vinyl booth in a quiet corner and the waitress brought them coffee without bothering to ask first. Alex stared at the beat up table with its pattern of multi-colored boomerang shapes and waited for Bobby to start talking.  
  
"I, uh- I wasn't going to tell you this until after. After I talked to Mulrooney," he said after dumping too much sugar into his coffee. "I wanted to be sure."  
  
"Tell me what?"   
  
His notebook was sitting on the table like a third arm with over-sized hands. He pulled three sheets of paper from it, setting them in front of her like an unfortunate spread of tarot cards. She looked up at him, waiting for an explanation. "I think I found our mystery woman," was all he said.   
  
The waitress came back with their pie. Apple for her, Boston creme for Bobby. Just like always.   
  
Alex looked at the papers sitting in front of her. Receipts. She stared at them. Read them more closely.  
  
Receipts for women's clothing.    
  
It takes her a moment to understand. Her stomach churns and her pie is still on the table when they leave.  
  
*********  
  
Halfway through Bobby's routine, Alex wished she hadn't come after all. The smell of old cardboard and relics from interrupted lives were suffocating.    
  
How had she been so wrong about Kevin? She'd opened up to him, told him things. She looked at Kevin, at Bobby. Had her judgment improved?   
  
She tried to think about other stuff. Less disturbing stuff, like the fact that there was box nearby with her dead husband's bloody shirt in it. It was a small box. Joe's had been a much less complex case.   
  
Not like this one.  
  
**********  
  
The place was crowded, dimly lit and noisy. They had to squeeze through a knot of people just inside the front door. God help them if the place burst into flames. Alex stayed in Bobby's wake, safe and untouched, until they made it to the sparsely populated bar. Standing between the door and the bartender must be the in thing to do this year. She looked around after ordering. A lot of familiar faces floated through the crowd and she wished they'd gone somewhere farther from work. Someplace more anonymous.   
  
They sat next to each other and made sure to keep a respectable distance between themselves. Just two partners celebrating another closed case. Their colleagues congratulated them, teased her about being a magnet for psychotic, murdering types (which Alex didn't find the least bit funny), and offered to buy them drinks. It was amusing, the way they talked to her and pretended Bobby didn't exist. Sometimes she forgot that the rest of the department didn't see him the way she did.  
  
Bobby would lean over and speak close to her ear whenever he had anything to say, and when they were silent for too long, his knee would bump into hers. Nothing that anyone would notice.   
  
They stayed long enough to keep up appearances and made sure to leave separately.   
  
********  
  
Any other night, Alex would have been in bed and Bobby would have had to deal with her crankiness at being woken up. She was up late, taking care of some long overdue business. She stopped her work when she heard his car pull up. It sounded like it was idling a little high. If she mentioned it, Bobby might let her poke around under the hood.  
  
He let himself in and for once, Alex could look him in the eyes. Hell, she could look at the top of his head if she wanted to. He walked up to the ladder she was sitting on and started talking like it was perfectly normal. "I ran into a friend of mine," he said. "He's in the home security business."  
  
"You don't say." Alex was always thrown off when Bobby mentioned having a friend. In her mind, he'd always been odd and friendless. Being Bobby's friend was a lot of work. She could imagine him having the kind of friends you only saw once or twice a year. Friends you could count on for small favors only if you had something to offer in return. But on a daily basis, being Bobby's friend was like having a second job.  
  
"He gave me some advice on-" Bobby stopped, finally noticing that she was not only wide awake and sitting on a six-foot ladder, but wearing a tool belt and holding a cordless drill as well. It wasn't her usual late night attire. "What are you doing?"  
  
"Security cameras," she told him.  
  
She handed one to him. They were small, wireless, and best of all, motion activated. She thought of getting an alarm, but decided it wouldn't be worth the cost. Anything that relied on annoying noises would be useless in a city that suffered from siren fatigue. No amount of braying would get a quick reaction from anyone. Even a monitored system was useless. Like they said, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away. So, cameras it was.   
  
"They'll email me a video clip if something sets them off," she said. She could check them from her cell phone too. They wouldn't do much good if someone broke in while she was home, but so far that hadn't been the problem. Also, she had a gun.  
  
"Oh." Bobby handed the camera back. He wasn't the kind of guy who got excited about gadgetry. "I like your belt," he said.  
  
"Yeah? Does it make you hot?"  
  
"Very. Maybe you could wear it later."  
  
"When did you get funny?"  
  
"I think you're rubbing off on me."  
  
There was a joke in there but she didn't bother looking for it. And it wasn't true, Bobby had a playful sense of humor that was entirely his own. She noticed (a lot) that other people didn't find him all that funny. It was something they shared, and might have been the only thing to get them through their first years as partners.  
  
***********  
  
Alex was still in bed when the doorbell rang early the next morning. Bobby was there too, which was odd, because he was awake, one hand behind his head, the other resting on the book he had draped across his chest. Bobby usually left the room when he woke up so he wouldn't disturb her. "Are you expecting someone?" he asked.  
  
She got up and slipped into her robe. "I'm never expecting someone this early."   
  
Alex padded to the front door, wincing when she had to cross the cold tiles. She felt stupid for teasing Bobby about sleeping with his socks on. The door bell rang again. Impatient, early person. Never a good thing. She should have grabbed her gun.   
  
She could tell by the mound of loose curls visible through the glass panel that it was Ross at her door. Shit. A quick glance around the foyer revealed too much evidence of Bobby so she opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. Ross glanced at her naked feet sticking out from under her robe. He might have been amused, she wasn't sure. Sometimes it was hard to pick out the emotions in his Droopy Dog features.  
  
"Captain?"   
  
"I was in the neighborhood," he said. Coming from anyone else that would have sounded contrived, but he'd probably been taking his boys home. Bobby had mentioned once, maybe twice, that his ex-wife lived close by. It didn't seem as important then as it did now that he was standing on her porch, unannounced and unexpected. She didn't need another reason to not be sleeping with Bobby. She had plenty of those. "I thought I'd stop by. See how you were doing."  
  
"I'm fine," she told him. "Thanks for-" For what? "Checking up on me," she finished. She supposed she should be grateful, considering. The entire squad knew about her underwear showing up in Mulrooney's evidence haul. How close had she come to playing a larger role in his twisted revenge scenario?   
  
"Any time," he said, and he was amused now, she was sure of it. Ross pulled a hat out of his pocket and turned to leave, sliding the it over his ears as he walked down the stairs. "Oh, and tell your partner he's parked too far from the curb," he said without looking back. "Some overzealous cop is going to ticket him."  
  
Alex didn't understand his comment until she looked past him as he walked to his car--his car which should have been parked directly in front of her house because nobody wanted to walk any farther than they had to in this weather. There was a really nice vintage Mustang sitting there instead. Bobby's car. His very distinctive car, so shiny and black it just about stood up and said hello when you walked by.   
  
Well, fuck. Way to be discreet, Bobby.  
  
*********  
  
Bobby let her rant about his stupidity for a good three minutes before interrupting. "He's not going to say anything."  
  
"He doesn't need to say anything. He'll split us up."  
  
"He won't. Nobody else-- Well, nobody else will work with me."   
  
That much was true, she couldn't think of another detective who would be willing to risk their career by be being associated with him. She sure knew how to pick them. Bobby was good at his job but without someone to run interference for him, he'd be a little useless.   
  
"I guess that's true," she admitted. "You are a bit high-maintenance."  
  
"Yeah." He pulled her into bed, wrapping the blankets around her and burying his face in her neck. He seemed impossibly warm and she tried to get closer. He jumped a little when her icy feet grazed his leg. "But I'm worth it, right?" he asked.  
  
It was a good question. Was he? Was any of this?   
  
"Most of the time," she admitted.   
  
"I can live with that."  
  
And, Alex decided, so could she.


End file.
